Bad library.

[Tranquilis]

@chela

tranquilis wrote

Yet locally, the town’s free library just joined the rest of the state in expanding their interlibrary connectivity and loaning. I can now, for no cost, check out a book from any public library in the state.

And they can deliver same day too I bet!

Next day, usually.

[Sattua]

@Happy_Booker

Would you mind giving the name of the library involved? I scan the library news pretty regularly and I haven’t seen this reported. I suspect that the folks at Library Journal and American Libraries would like to be all over it.

I’d be happy to PM it to you, but you aren’t accepting PMs currently… would rather not post it on the message board for privacy reasons.

[justrob]

@Sattua

I understand all that, Lynn. What chaps my ass is that they’re still happy to lend books out to libraries all over the rest of the state for free… and to receive loans from all over the state for free. They should either be all-in or all-out.

Also, their refusal to lend to us puts a heavier burden on the rest of the state, which will have to ship more books further… unless they too opt out of the loan system.

I suspect Lynn Bodoni is probably correct. You mentioned that 60% of their circulation are material checked out by the surrounding bedroom communities. I would expect that 60% not to go further out in the state but to just not be, mostly, checked out. Think about it 60% of their circulation currently is being checked out by the localish bedroom communities. That means the remaining 40% is divided by books checked out by it’s residents and the entire rest of the state.

You also mentioned that the twin city doesn’t pay taxes into their system. Do the bedroom communities?

I wonder what the lending is like at your local libraries. How much of what they lend comes from their collection and how much comes from ILL. Do they lend out much through ILL?

If you are really angry about this you should encourage your local community to work with the downtown library. Get the community to foot the bill for the ILL fees. That way the downtown library gets the funds it needs to support the large amount of ILL materiel being used and residents of the smaller communities get their free ILL back. Albeit they have to support it through taxes just like the larger community is doing now. Everybody wins!

[AuntiePam]

@justrob

If you are really angry about this you should encourage your local community to work with the downtown library. Get the community to foot the bill for the ILL fees. That way the downtown library gets the funds it needs to support the large amount of ILL materiel being used and residents of the smaller communities get their free ILL back. Albeit they have to support it through taxes just like the larger community is doing now. Everybody wins!

I wonder if the local community is already paying something to the downtown library.

My town pays $1200 a year to the library in the nearest town. It’s a per capita fee, and residents pay nothing.

I just started using the library again a couple months ago. I’m too broke to buy everything I want to read. But if I had to pay $200 a year to use the library, I don’t know what I’d do.

Wait. Yes I do. $200 would buy about 50 used books at Amazon.

[Sattua]

Another day–I’m a little calmer. Please forgive me, I have pregnancy-brain and am not very good at processing information right now: it turns out that what the email from the downtown library said is that branch members borrow from them at 60% of the rate they borrow from their own libraries. That is, for every ten items we check out from our own branches, we check out six items from downtown.

I have no idea what percentage of their circulation is interlibrary loans, to outlying communities or elsewhere. The downtown library’s tax district comprises about 40% of the county’s population. The twin city has 20%. My own town has 5%.

Residents of outlying communities without libraries of their own have always had to pay a yearly fee equivalent to what their library taxes would be if they lived in town, to use the libraries. The rest of us have a portion of our taxes put towards library membership. The communities with branch libraries pay taxes to their own branches, not to the downtown library. That is the justification for the new annual charge for us to continue using their library. What is irksome about this is that the libraries are all part of the same library system, which has a charter of free access between libraries. We in our community pay the same amount for library system access as the city residents. Just, our home libraries suck.

With the branches being as tiny as they are, they don’t have many materials because they don’t have space to house them. Because they are part of the ILL system, though, they freely loan materials when requested.

I also realize that we’ve been spoiled with free interlibrary loans. It’s a really neat system. There are problems now because the state can’t afford to pay the company that provides the service.

The outlying communities request materials from the downtown library at such a high rate because it is a nearby large library. I assume that this change will not affect the rate of loan requests from us; the loans will just have to come from farther out. Also, because downtown’s materials will not be shipping to nearby communities as a priority, they will be claimed by other, farther away libraries at a somewhat higher rate than they are now.

Part of my anger is definitely a result of 21st century media access having spoiled us for free, instant access to information. I’m old enough to remember how bad information access sucked before the internet. I know that what we have now is a beautiful, beautiful thing, and that this one library refusing to cooperate doesn’t even take us back to where things were when I was a child. But still, it’s access that used to be there and is now gone.